Why the Electorial College needs to go.

I found a good video that explains the Electorial College pretty well.

And in so doing shows why it needs to go.

a reply to: HarbingerOfShadows

Sorry, but I'm on dial-up - no video streaming for me.

Why does it need to go? How do you think it should go?

a reply to: HarbingerOfShadows

Company phone here, don't stream videos.
Tell us a little about it

a reply to: HarbingerOfShadows

I should have known more about the way the system works but alas I have either forgotten or never knew ? Great video and thank you for posting. I agree totally... the present system with the electoral college being weighted as it is might have worked 200 years ago but today it does not represent the people in and open and fair election.

a reply to: HarbingerOfShadows

Thanks. The part I like best in the video is the fact that anyone could win the presidency (Ma?) with only 22% of the popular vote.

I'm also for the idea of "one man, one vote" but the electoral college is here to stay.
Think of it as a very effective control mechanism for the elite, corporate person-hood, political parties.
Once given power they don't give it up. That's a fact jack!

a reply to: 727Sky

I think TPTB are holding this as their last ace-in-the-hole. We'll see it sprung on a grass-roots winner before enough people realize their vote really doesn't count.

a reply to: HarbingerOfShadows

The video clearly lays out the flaws in the electoral college. I always felt it should be abolished. The winner of the majority of the popular vote makes every vote count. In my view, the majority should always rule. The electoral college allows a politician to focus too much political influence in states that have more electoral votes. I think the powers that be don't want to change the system because they know it's easier to control the outcome of an election.

a reply to: WeRpeons

I wouldn't go that far as to say the majority should rule.
The founding fathers were correct in my opinion by trying to avoid what they termed "the tyranny of the majority".
Case in point, lynch mobs.
But.
The problem with the electoral college is that it can be and is gamed to the detrement of our best interests.
A new system needs to be found.

originally posted by: Snarl
a reply to: 727Sky

I think TPTB are holding this as their last ace-in-the-hole. We'll see it sprung on a grass-roots winner before enough people realize their vote really doesn't count.

You may be right.. I would like to see a grass roots kinda person win... However there was a very telling comment by one of the talking heads a couple of cycles ago who basically said that with all the rule changes the two parties have made even a Regan could not be nominated much less win. Maybe he was correct, maybe he was wrong, but what the Republican party and many of the news feeds did to Ron Paul turned my political switch off big time.. Did not matter if you were for or against him... What they did IMO was proof pudding there is no such thing as fair elections unless you are someone put forth by the Dems and Repubs.

i agree that the electoral collage is a fixed system.

lets just look at this way, say there wasn't a some sort of system in place, and all there was one man, one vote.

Wyoming has a population of just, 582,658 est 2013. say in a given everybody in that state voted for one person.
the next least populace state is Vermont, 626,630 est 2013 and say they all voted for one person.

that would eliminate the person that wyoming voted for and give Vermont's person a little over 40,000 more votes.
see where i'm going.

the politicians would start to focus on the states and regions with the higher populations. and then that to would be just as corrupt and bad as the electoral collage.

so this is from the wiki, the regions population. listed as region and rank then population. green in the bottom chart.

Northeast 4 55,943,073. South 1 118,383,453. Midwest 3 67,547,890. West 2 74,254,423.
List of U.S. states and territories by population

so if that happened the south would be the one focused on the most. personaly being from the south i got no problem with that. but i think some would.

a reply to: HarbingerOfShadows

I'd give you applause if I could. I love that YT channel!



Simple, easily explainable lessons. Some most Americans could grasp, if they aren't distracted by the latest gadget.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

Agreed.
I don't claim to know what would work better.
But you don't need to know how to fix something to know it's broken.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."
-Abraham Lincoln

The Electoral College is not a perfect system. But it does solve some problems with a straight majority vote system.

A straight majority vote system is even more ripe for corruption. Because candidates would strive to maximize their vote totals in areas of strength. That's a recipe for fraud.

But it does present a lot of problems for third party candidates. It's not perfect.

Trivia question (try to answer without Google):

Who was the last third party candidate to win votes in the electoral college?

(Of course, most recent elections are rigged one way or another. So none of this really matters.)

originally posted by: Moresby
The Electoral College is not a perfect system. But it does solve some problems with a straight majority vote system.

A straight majority vote system is even more ripe for corruption. Because candidates would strive to maximize their vote totals in areas of strength. That's a recipe for fraud.

But it does present a lot of problems for third party candidates. It's not perfect.

Trivia question (try to answer without Google):

Who was the last third party candidate to win votes in the electoral college?

(Of course, most recent elections are rigged one way or another. So none of this really matters.)

I agree,

We would need to replace it with something because the one person one vote would not work well. We would end up with one party system and it would most likely be the democrats since they focus on the big cities already to get the subsistence/union vote, and so that is what our country would become all over.

Another thing to remember is we are 50 united states, and so each states has a right to vote for the federal president. It seems many already want to become a democracy, or think we are one, but we are 50 individual states united together forming a republic, big difference. I personally would like to keep that individuality.

a reply to: Moresby

according to forrest gump that angry little man from alabama George Wallace

originally posted by: HarbingerOfShadows
a reply to: WeRpeons

I wouldn't go that far as to say the majority should rule.
The founding fathers were correct in my opinion by trying to avoid what they termed "the tyranny of the majority".

But is that not the whole point of the US constitution? To lay a firm framework on what things the governments can not touch or regulate?

Only if you think of the "United States" as singular. But see that "s" on the end of the word "state"? That would indicate that 50 states (or 57 if you listen to Obama) are united for a common purpose. Now that idea isn't very popular any more. It hasn't been since the "Civil War," called "The War of Northern Aggression" by anyone in the South who fell victim to it. And it has been further eroded because the "populace" decided it would be better to elect senators by direct popular vote to make them "accountable to the people" and not beholden to the State Legislatures. But that ship has sailed.

If you got rid of the Electoral College then you might as well eliminate national elections in the fly-over states. Why even have them? The left and right coastal cities would run the country with no input from smaller states at all. The Dakotas? Forget it. Wyoming? Nothing there. Alaska? Bunch of snow. Hawaii? Bunch of heat. Without the Electoral College there would be absolutely no need whatsoever to involve them. it would just be an exercise in pretending the populations of those states actually mattered. But in fact they would be dis-enfranchised completely.

But with the Electoral College, it at least theoretically can be the case that a smaller state matters. And that means the national politicians, even with their Grand Strategies, MUST pay attention to ALL states and not ignore them or treat them as a source of resources for the big cities.

It's bad enough already. What with the scientific analysis of the electorate, all the parties have to do is make an emotional appeal that will attract those with an IQ of 100 or less, which is by definition half the population. Add a few intellectuals who think in theory at the expense of the rest of us "for the common good," and you have yourself a winning combination.

You think your vote doesn't count now, just abolish the Electoral College and seal the deal. Then you may as well turn over the election to New York and Los Angeles and just forget about voting altogether, if you haven't already. I don't think there is much hope for the "voter" myself. Eliminating the Electoral College would simply be the last nail in the coffin.

originally posted by: hounddoghowlie
a reply to: Moresby

according to forrest gump that angry little man from alabama George Wallace

That is correct. He won 5 states and 46 electoral votes. He did that with 9.9 million votes, some 13.5% of the vote total.

In 1992, Ross Perot would get 19 million votes, 18.9% of the total. But he would not win a single electoral vote.

a reply to: schuyler

That's covered in the video.
But here's the numbers, even if a canidate took both LA and NYC they could still lose.

1

New York City

19,949,502

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA

Northeast



2

Los Angeles

13,131,431

Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana, CA MSA

West



3

Chicago

9,537,289

Chicago–Joliet–Naperville, IL–IN–WI MSA

Midwest



4

Dallas–Fort Worth

6,810,913

Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, TX MSA

South



5

Houston

6,313,158

Houston–The Woodlands-Sugar Land MSA

South



6

Philadelphia

6,034,678

Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD MSA

Northeast



7

Washington, D.C.

5,949,859

Washington, DC–VA–MD–WV MSA

Northeast



8

Miami

5,828,191

Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL MSA

South



9

Atlanta

5,522,942

Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Marietta, GA MSA

South



10

Boston

4,684,299

Boston–Cambridge–Quincy, MA–NH MSA

Northeast



11

San Francisco

4,516,276

San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont, CA MSA

West



12

Phoenix

4,398,762

Phoenix–Mesa–Glendale, AZ MSA

West



13

San Bernardino-Riverside

4,380,878

San Bernandino–Riverside–Ontario, CA MSA

West



14

Detroit

4,294,983

Detroit–Warren–Livonia, MI MSA

Midwest



15

Seattle

3,610,105

Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA MSA

West



16

Minneapolis–St. Paul

3,459,146

Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington, MN–WI MSA

Midwest



17

San Diego

3,211,252

San Diego–Carlsbad–San Marcos, CA MSA

West



18

Tampa–St. Petersburg

2,870,569

Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater, FL MSA

South



19

St. Louis

2,810,056

St. Louis–St. Charles–Farmington, MO–IL MSA

Midwest



20

Baltimore

2,770,738

Baltimore–Towson, MD MSA

Northeast



based upon 2013 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau